Getting Out of Ourselves at Christmas

It seems selfish to write about myself on Christmas Eve, but as we all know, the self is inescapable. For instance, ask yourself: When another opens your gift, do you hope it brings them joy, or are you more focused on whether they will like it or not, whether you made a good selection? Naturally these things are not mutually exclusive... and what about the guilt you may feel when someone spends more on you than you did on them? As a cook you may wonder if the gravy is too thin. As a woman you may compare festive outfits and decide yours was too bland. All this is normal, and expected, and part of our psychology. Some may blame our preoccupation with the self on some theoretical fall; I think we have too much time for our heads. For most of history men have worked like dogs. With increased leisure comes increased introspection, and many may not like what they find. Then others, the positive and irrepressible, use their leisure time for active pleasures--fishing boats and golf clubs and the like. I'm often in a quandary when asked about a Christmas list; most of my wishes are non-material. Here's my list:

1) Complete remission from depression.

I recognize my list is selfish, I just hope it's not too long.

I wish for all those I've met here good health in the New Year. Without health, everything else becomes hard to enjoy. So often we take good health for granted. In fact, we tend to take everything for granted. Too many blessings become entitlements in our minds. We only notice what changes, though many of us want everything to stay the same. We fear change, because each gain becomes a new potential loss. The answer is to try to stay in the moment and keep going and do what good you can.

I have organizing and cleaning to do today. I'm prevented from serious writing because I don't have my computer; the keyboard on Kathleen's, which she has let me borrow, just won't conform to my fingers properly. Besides, I'm at a bit of an impasse: I want to work on promoting my work instead of creating more. Yet all these books of advice on publishing contain one contradiction: 1) You must believe in your book, put your whole heart into it. 2) You must direct your book towards a specific target market. Doesn't two have to influence one? But if one is your dream, two may become your nightmare. And after publication is finally achieved, promotion must go on until you're thoroughly sick of your work. As one writer put it: "I feel like an employee of my former self."

My mind is rather blank today. I chose a poem from my archives for what reason I don't know, below, previously published in Ygdrasil and Tintern Abbey. Let's hope our selves can get out of ourselves this season.


To My Manic Self

I see you in the sky,
a runaway balloon
bent on another try
to penetrate the moon.

Your flight inflates my mind
like I was born to rule,
so I rise above mankind
(mortal and immortal fool)

to trail your Cheshire grin
into the stratosphere
where I am born again
as Jesus or King Lear.

The problem is collapse.
You always do deflate
and leave me holding maps
to places I was great.

So am I the puppeteer?
I thought it was always you!
You with your confident leer,
jeweled cane and retinue,

You, ready to hog the stage
and bask in cheap applause
to camouflage your rage
against the cosmic laws.

But when the show is over
it’s me that they arrest
while you go undercover
inside my empty chest.

So which one holds the strings?
I don’t know who I am--
but I wouldn’t have crowned me king
if they were in my hand.


2 Kilorats and a Merry Christmas!

C.E. Chaffin

Captain Melancholy and Dale Carnegie

Captain Melancholy (CM): What's with these dying trees? I see them being sold everywhere, people haul these things home to watch them die, to watch their needles brown while they turn into a first class fire hazard.

Dale Carnegie (DC): It's not about trees dying, it's a celebration of the evergreen as a symbol of the sun returning from its journey on the winter solstice.

CM: Who asked him to return? Hasn't he heard of global warming? Have Al Gore give Old Sol a clue.

DC: Global warming is not the fault of the sun, it's a sign of industrial progress. Progress, progress, progress is what it's all about. Think positive!

CM: And if I put all my retirement money into a coastal Florida shack?

DC: Think of the joy of rebuilding!

CM: I think without the sun there would be no global warming. Ergo cancel Christmas and construct some giant parasols in space. I love space; so dark and lifeless, so hopeless, so final. I want to be buried in space.

DC: If you take my sales course you might bve able to afford it someday.

CM: Ha! Do you know how much they pay me just to stay away from the inaugural ball? It's depression protection money. I'm not the mob, but I collect my due, even from the mob. Look at Tony Soprano. And I've gone easy on him.

DC: Eek! What's that look in your eyes?

CM: Just your death, how do you like it?

DC: I hope I don't see you later.

CM: Then pay up, dude, or I'll shit on your dreams. That's better. You can go back now to your imaginary world of happiness, full well knowing you have to pay protection money to preserve your illusion.

DC: I'll send Norman Vincent Peale and Tony Robbins after you!

CM: Two more of my paying clients. Where have you been?

DC: The best things in life are free!

CM: Like depression. You want some?

DC: Help! I'm out of here!

CM: Chicken. I want to sing:

"I'm dreaming of a black Christmas
Just like a mental hospital
Where the patients shuffle
And nurses bustle
To give us all our latest dose.

I'm dreaming of a black Christmas
With every Christmas card I burn.
May your days be sorry and sad
And may all your Christmases be bad."

I hope this finds you in good cheer so I can ruin it.


Depressively yours,

Captain Melancholy

(3 kilorats)

Captain Melancholy

I have thirty minutes today to blog something for my official 400th post. One wants to be profound in such cases, but profundity can never be summoned by will, it begins with an idea, and I'm short on ideas right now, a rare occurrence when I'm well but not surprising when I'm depressed.

I checked out several books from the library yesterday on getting published. The first tells me in no uncertain terms that I must choose a specific genre and target market and market, market, schmooze, go to every writer's conference, etc. I don't particularly like to hang out with writers, especially poets, as egotism tends to suck all the oxygen out of the room. I include myself in that atmospheric phenomenon, of course.

One question the book asked of me is why I write. As for poetry, I've written it all my life and mainly felt compelled to write it. With regard to prose, it started in my last depression of '96. Not being able to work as a doctor I had to think of something to do. So I started writing to keep my brain from feeding on itself (a diet of smaller and smaller portions). That year I wrote a book of short stories called "The Eric Chronicles." I'm still proud of them. I think they have commercial potential, but who knows? One agent said they were neither adult nor young adult fiction. That left me with infants and the senile.

Thus ultimately it is my depression that gave birth to my fiction and non-fiction endeavors; I have my illness to thank for my writing.

Speaking of my illness, I'm really sick right now. The happy pills (Abilify), even though the doctor doubled the dose, quit working after two months, the same experience I had with other cocktails that began to work this year. Now my doctor and I have agreed to do something radical; I'm tapering off all the expensive mood stabilizers and will take only the antidepressants. This runs a slight risk of mania, but I have an antidote (Seroquel) at home in case I start crawling the walls like Spiderman.

Perhaps I could be a super hero? The super hero of depression? What should I call myself? Captain Melancholy will do.

Imagine, Captain Melancholy goes to a Christmas party. Instead of a tight-fitting spandex suit he wears a friar's robe with the rope around his neck, not his waist. He enters the party, head down. When he makes eye contact with anyone he starts to weep and then avoids them. Within fifteen minutes Captain Melancholy has sucked all the joy out of Smallville. People are hushed, feeling guilty about drinking. Every woman wants to crawl into a closet because she now knows her outfit is awful. All the men think their packages have grown smaller, their heads balder and their wallets thinner. Anxiety rules. Drinking increases. Guilt increases. Finally, after about half an hour of sinking spirits people begin to leave without saying good-bye; they are afraid of the human contact saying good-bye would entail.

How should this superpower be used for good? If only I could be invited to a White House affair, maybe Cheney and company would get a dark view of themselves, one more consistent with reality. Or maybe wives could hire me to crash their husbands' Super Bowl parties as payback for all that lost time on the tube.

This follows in a great tradition of Eeeyor, Marvin the Paranoid Android and many other literary figures, including Lil' Abner's Joe Bfltstyk, the character with a rain cloud always over his head.

I am without a computer or net access at home now, so I can't even write--I have nothing to type on. There's a story behind this but I won't bore you with it. Suffice it to say, if I did stay home alone all day and could not write what would I do? One of the tragedies of my form of depression is that I am usually a very active person with many goals, so that when I'm depressed I feel I should always be doing something. With nothing to do, I don't know what I'd do. Gotta get my crappy computer back; unfortunately the repairman has taken ill. I sure hope he doesn't have what I have.

All my poems, columns, books, etc. are now maintained on one 4 GB memory stick that can easily be carried on a key chain. I lift the small plastic device up to my stepson and say, "Here's my life. My life is in this plastic thingamajig." And I am both amazed and disappointed.

Everyone's a writer but only some are worth reading. The last good book I read was The Historian. I have trouble getting into books in my condition. And I feel guilty about returning to the pit in my blog, but what can I do? I could "smile through my tears and sorrow" but that gets old after a while. I could try to "change my thinking" but it's really my feeling that needs to be changed; I'm biologically stuck. I don't usually worry or suffer from delusions, as I do now, as in "I might be dying from a mesothelioma," even though I forced myself to swim over a mile yesterday. I get short of breath because of anxiety. I don't get short of breath while exercising. Exercise itself is no worse than anything else and no better except that it is physical. I could cry while swimming if I let myself, but as I said in an earlier post I find that redundant. The swim goggles can't keep the water out if the water comes from within!

Thus ends my 400th post. I write for the sake of my sanity. I'm trying to transition to writing for money, but I don't know if it will work out since my motives are not commercial, thus my projects aren't pre-planned for a known slice of the market.

There is only one fruitcake, you know, and it gets passed around to everyone every year. "Figgy pudding," FYI, is much like fruitcake. Remember that if you find yourself singing, "We won't go until we get it."


4 Kilorats,

CE

Still depressed but coping; book rejection

First, there is a new post which got posted as an old one, "Writing and Personality" if you scroll down.

It's not just whining. ;-)

I wonder, can I work out my own psychology on paper or do I need a therapist? Is writing enough? I've written reams before trying to understand my melancholy, and the writing has helped somewhat with acceptance but not with the actual depression.

As in my essay, "My Struggle with Literary Narcissism," among other character defects, I am most worried about a lingering bitterness, I fear, about never getting my due. But why do I demand my due? Why should I need praise and publicity to validate my art? I used to be content just to write a good poem. Now I want it published or or praised or paid for. I don't write to be published or for contests, naturally, I write to write. But the darkness of feeling as if I got a raw deal disturbs me. "Rejoice with those who rejoice." That's hard to do when they are preferred above you and you honestly believe your work is superior. But I have been there before emotionally, rejoicing wit others instead of jealous, and hope to return there again.

This week, rather than stay at home, write and weep, I've been coming with Kathleen to town in the morning. I hang out at a coffee shop, go online at the library, exercise at the gym--somehow I manage to fill the day. And according to my rules for depression I am doing the right thing. It's better to be around people and out and about than cooped up with two cats and the two hemispheres of my brain, both pairs fighting.

I just got my first rejection for my Eliot book yesterday; it's what I expected. At least the editorial board of Mellen Press gave it a good read. I'm thinking that self-publishing is the easiest way to give my work a chance out there; with the proper promotion, you can do OK. Sure, I'd feel better if some august press wanted to feature me, but the chances of that happening, though not great, can only be played out if I continue to query for years. I am on the cusp of giving in to self-publishing, however, and selling my books on demand. At least then I'll have a tangible record to hand someone and prove I'm a writer, avoiding that embarrassing question about vanity press. But hey, Whitman did it, and others.

Having completed all my past writing projects except for my theological tome, "In Search of the Spirit," it's time to look forward to a new subject. And I think it's time to give in to my friends and few fans, who always find my life more interesting than my writing, what they're always asking me for. Yes, I'm talking autobiography, the memoir of a manic-depressive doctor and poet, both in hospital and jail and out. It's been done by Mark Vonnegut and Kay Jamison, but no matter; in an age of inauthenticity the audience still craves the authentic, the personal, for their vicarious delectation.

I'm about out of time at the library computer. This is my 399th post on this blog. Amazing. And since I installed the site meter sometime in 2006, over 20,000 have come this way. I'm grateful to be heard. This blog has proven to be more of a comfort to me than I imagined. I wanted to show off my writing, especially humorous essays here, but ended up in the confessional mode because of my disease. Whether a fortuitous change or not, it is what it is and I yam what I yam-- "I'm Craigie the mental man!"


3 Kilorats and fragile,

CE

Christianity and Nature

I've been having a long correspondence with an old friend about Christianity, both personal and philosophical. As some readers may know, I call myself a Christian because I believe it historically true that Christ rose from the dead. I have confessed him as "Lord," but I don't feel it. In truth I get more spiritual nourishment from Nature and loved ones. To be fair, theologically, that is also God acting, though I think Nature too often spared criticism.

"Red in tooth and claw" wrote Tennyson. Why must nature be so filled with violence, from the praying mantis to the great white shark? The Christian explanation is that nature fell along with man, and man did not become a carnivore until after the flood. But given the fossil record, it is obvious that nature was red in tooth and claw long before man appeared. Just look at T. Rex! And there are thorns and thistles before man's appearance. Thus linking fallen Nature to man's fall is anachronistic, though some believers like to think of the Jurassic period as a time of monsters, of nature gone awry. Nonsense. So when did Nature fall? When man appeared? Rubbish.

If in paradise "the lion shall lay down with the lamb" (my, what big teeth you have, Grandmother, for grinding grain)-- the lion would have to be completely re-designed to become a vegetarian. Then one could argue all these animals we cherish will be resurrected like us, not needing material sustenance. But here: When the resurrected Christ re-appeared to the disciples near the end of The Book of John, he cooks fish for them. That involves killing; the finny tribe bleeds red just like the furry one. So the resurrected Christ blessed the killing of animals, did he not? Not surprising since the practice of Old Testament Judaism is all about slaughtering animals, and Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. All very neat. The example of the resurrected Christ shows no change in man's attitude toward nature. One can make an argument that he practiced the norm while in this world, but he could have as easily toasted some bread for his disciples.

You can't argue anything from Nature except beauty. Justice? Love? Goodness? A good lion kills.

Robinson Jeffers is the one poet I know who looks at nature realistically, without any contaminating anthropomorphism. His God finds war as beautiful as peace, the glow of an atom bomb as pleasing as a sunset. If we are honest with ourselves we will dispense with the illusion that Nature is some kind of soft landing, some example of kindness and goodness. We will see that sea otters are predators, however "cute" theyi appear. (BTW, "cuteness" means anything that resembles a human infant. I have established this to my satisfaction. Note that those kindly disposed to aliens give them big heads and big eyes and small noses, just like the human infant.)

So if one cannot derive the nature of God from Nature, it must come from revelation. Then revelation must arrive through the fallen beings who record it, and where does that leave us? With a spotty record of the truth, surely. One thing that makes me believe the New Testament is all the unflattering things included, like Christ cursing the poor fig tree. Still, if we object to that action, a good Christian would likely reply, "Who are you to judge God?" To which I say, "Sorry, I can't help it, I was born with this prickly thing called a conscience."

Back to my original discussion. I am a Christian philosophically but not emotionally. In other words, I believe in forgiveness but I don't feel forgiven. This is the perplexity that tortures me when I attend church, which is rarely, because I weep for loss--partly the loss of my early concepts of God, as I was converted to the "Jesus Movement" when I was 16. With my mind and mood disorder, a simple faith doesn't seem to be an option, but I envy those who have it, like my friend. He not only believes in forgiveness, he feels it. He experiences God. Since most of my experiences can be questioned experientially on the basis of my mental illness, how would I know if I really felt forgiven anyway? Maybe it would only reflect a leap in serotonin levels, though the two (feeling and brain chemistry) are by no means mutually exclusive.

What am I getting at? I don't know; like Robert Burton I write as an escape from melancholy. In a nutshell I don't trust my feelings, thus I am prevented from having a religious experience. All through the Bible one is supposed to love God with all one's heart; that is no easy proposition for me. A leper cannot "feel" a doorknob, thus may break his wrist trying to open a locked door. In the same way my feeling sensors are diseased and I don't know whether I'm feeling God or not. (I don't care how long this blog entry is, I want to know the problem.)

Why is it I can't embrace God? Why is it that I can't feel as if I believe? Where is the joy of forgiveness? And if the Christian God is all powerful, why can't he break through my illness and give me the gift of feeling forgiven? My argument is that it is not just a lack of faith on my part, but a consequence of my disease. Before I was diagnosed manic-depressive I had many religious "highs" which in retrospect I realize were most likely manifestations of the disease. In a very real sense, this disease has robbed me of my former faith. What I end up with is what I call "beef jerky Christianity," a faith stripped of experience, a dried up philosophical commitment to truth.

Is this noble or foolish? I don't know. Ever since I had electroconvulsive therapy at the age of 30 I have not been able to re-connect with God. The closest I've come is taking the Eucharist at an Episcopal church I attended in Mexico. At that moment I feel as if I can believe; as soon as I leave the altar I begin to doubt my experience, though I confess there is a faint glow in that action.

Maybe I should convert to Catholicism and be done with it. I've tried Buddhism, but it was an inferior sect. I dabbled in spiritualism when very young. Hinduism is a great comfort but for me no guide to life. Judaism is Christianity unfulfilled. Sikhism and Zoroastrianism are attractive, especially the concept of asa (truth) vs. lies in the latter. Islam holds no attraction for me; it seems a step back from both Judaism and Christianitiy. We all know the dangers of its fundamentalist version.

In these speculations I have stopped crying. The cats play; it's a sunny day; Kathleen is reading upstairs, dizzy with her ear infection. I look forward to my youngest daughter's visit on the 27th. Life ain't half bad, no matter how bad I get.

Another poem from my archives that reflects some of my struggles with Christianity:



Christ's Lighthouse

There is a pillar of light
stuck in the rocks like Excalibur
above a harbor of heavy water,
hushed and heavy with suffering,
where waves swallow their foam—
but much can obstruct your view
while your eyes crave on.

I used to lose sight of it, thinking
the ocean's furious slam dance the thing,
me roped to the mast between
the cold salt walls of death,
or ships would block it,
horns and radios distract me
until only a slip of light in the marbled sky
recalled its jeweled foghorn,
a dog whistle for the deaf.

Do I dare now? Do I dare say
I see it always, through iron bars
and self-revulsion as if the great stone
of the world were rolled away?
What terrible temptations do I then tempt,
What unexpected holy thing
may morph into evil,
baiting my inner eye
with self-congratulation—
me a blind man beating
his dog with a stick?

(published in Mindfire, where you can enjoy Kathleen's poems as well)


2 Kilorats,

Craig Erick

Fessing Up to a Relapse

I've been avoiding the mention of depression since Thanksgiving, after which I took a dive into my usual 11 AM and 4 PM weeping spells. I try to ignore them and let them play out. I try not to globalize and condemn myself after the sadness comes. It does bother me that in this run I have thought about myself more than Rachel. I hate melancholy.

At nights, partly with the help of a non-prescription elixir, I feel better. This is a standard pattern for clinical depression, mornings being worst, evenings better.

I'm a cliche'. There's nothing original about my disease. Like Robert Burton, who published his Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621, I cope in part by writing. The full title of Burton's book is typical of the obsessive depressive: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Historically, Opened and Cut up.

I haven't read the thing, but I know it outsold Shakespeare, being one of the original self-help books (if one ignores Origen). ;-)

One thing you have to ask about self-help books: If the author's so frigging happy, why did he feel the need to write the book?

I find self-help books toxic when I'm depressed. I feel guilty for not being happier. But melancholy isn't my fault, just my responsibility, like having diabetes. Thus I saw my shrink today and he doubled the "happy pill" (so my friend Eric calls it) which I can't afford, making Christmas a little thin. It's worth it if it works, because who wants a depressed Craig around Christmas? It's hard enough putting up with him when he's well.

Some of my friend's wives have commented, in the past, that they actually liked me better depressed than euthymic. Not so my friends. They expect hypomanic entertainment and adventurous shenanigans from me. Who I've been in this blog is not how I will be remembered by those close to me.

I'm also going to withdraw from a narcotic pain management regimen to see if that may be contributing to my inability to put this depression to bed. It will be hard, my pain will increase, yada--but I'd rather be in physical than emotional pain. With modern pharmacopia we sometimes have a choice.

I cut a small redwood today for a Christmas tree. It looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree on steroids, gangly, a bit barren--but it's six feet tall and perfectly green, not drooping like Charlie's. Sure, I could go to the store and buy one of those perfectly trimmed Douglas Firs if I so chose, but they are artificially manicured into a cone shape. Trees don't grow like that in the wild. And here in the redwoods you're lucky to find a sapling with branches on all sides, given the fierce competition for the sun.

When Kathleen came down from a nap (she's been sick with a middle ear infection) she laughed and laughed at the tree. But being a good sport, she began to decorate it in earnest. As the foliage is not lush, the tree forces you to choose your favorite ornaments.

All I want for Christmas is a stable, euthymic mood.

New word: When paralyzed by the overwhelming chaos of a room in your efforts to clean it, a state of affairs we refer to as "schmegged," you are in "schmeggalysis."

I really want to end this entry with something positive, so from my poetic archives (when I used to write poetry), here's today's salutation:

Already

If you haven't filed your taxes in years
and with a dry throat call the 800 number
to be put on hold forever while dying to hang up,
tempted to one more dereliction in a life of derelictions,

or if your teenagers grieve you by apathy
and drug abuse, reminding you of your own
adolescence so you can't draw the line
without feeling hypocritical,

or if you cultivate a false smile over coffee
because you went to bed angry at your mate,
pretending to polite conversation
while entertaining fantasies of divorce,

or if you write a hopeful piece
instead of your usual blue ramblings
and fear others will find it facile, your art
of no account, just therapy for the overeducated,

then reach out through the stillness
for a thimbleful of light poured
into your words without measure.
Look! It is already in your palm.

(published in Kimera)

I had a bad dream last night about running green lights. Everyone was doing it but I knew it was dangerously wrong.

2 Kilorats,

CE

.

Subprime Debacle: No Morality but the Economy

I was trying to make reservations for Kathleen’s flight to NY for her mother’s birthday through NWA, where she has a “world perks” card for discounts and mileage. An hour-and-a-half later of laboring on the computer boiled down to this: Without her pin number (which she had forgotten or not been assigned) I could not reset her secret question; without her answer to her secret question I could not re-set the pin number. The secret question concerns the hospital where she was born; I assume our answer is wrong because there must be one letter out of place. Computers do not make allowances for general substance, only precise ciphers. So I chatted with an online rep, who dismissed me with an e-mail on how to re-set the pin. Phone assistance was no better. I accomplished nothing except the confirmation of the Catch-22 nature of living more and more with hired mechanical information processors.

Here’s a business idea I think would make millions: Form a company that specializes in outsourcing information support for larger corporations, information support given only by real humans in real time, flexible enough to obviate the Catch-22 nature of modern living. When was the last time you called a large business and got a real human instead of a cascade of automatic menus? Wouldn’t you pay a little extra for that service? And it might pay for itself in efficiency. The chief efficiency of phone menus and intractable computer demands for a transaction may actually be the discouragement of customers seeking help, thus lowering the overall support burden of an enterprise.

************

How about the bail out of subprime mortgage holders? It’s not a great solution as it only affects a small percentage of loan holders who must be up to date on their payments. Nevertheless it raises an interesting philosophical question.

Some economists aver that lack of support for homeowners and their outrageous loans will contribute to a recession, and that property values will fall. They say, “Why worry about morality when the economy is at stake?” Others, like myself, wonder why the government doesn’t deliver me from credit card debt or finance a new home for me with the golden calf of other people’s taxes. The consensus I sense from various sources seems to indicate that most politicians favor the bailout because it is good for the economy. The economy, in other words, trumps morality. Ah, the abortion mills must love this.
.

The obvious question is, then, why don’t we apply this same principle to the war in Iraq? Does the war benefit our economy? No. From Bush’s perspective it is a moral battle for democracy. So it’s OK to waste money in a moral crusade, but wrong to make moral judgments about greedy banks and debtors because it’s bad for the economy?

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. –Emerson

I beg to differ with Ralph Waldo when the foolish consistency of morality costs us a projected trillion dollars in Iraq. A wise consistency would bail out the loans and leave Iraq for economic reasons, or not bail out the loans and continue in Iraq for moral reasons (granting Bush the high ground on Iraq is only for purposes of argument).

I think it was foolish to invade Iraq but immoral to occupy it. It was immoral because it violated the sovereignty of another nation in order to impose alien values we had no right to impose.

The corporate profits from the war in no way compensate for the economic losses of men and materiel. Morality doesn’t either. God bless my demand for foolish consistency.

***************

I’ve learned again from my recent near death that “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. After I nearly choked to death I tried to get out of washing the dishes but Derek and Kathleen said, “No way!”

Obviously if I had died I would have gotten out of it.

***************

Finished my mushroom identification course today. Now I’ve been charged to identify all the undocumented immigrant mushrooms that may be lurking between here and the border. Dirty fungus bastards! I’ll show you where you can stuff the free benefits of our forest decay!

Did you know that there are poachers here in the State Forest who work at night with large trucks to haul out trees, like Douglas fir and young redwoods? I had a ranger ask me to keep an eye out for fresh cuts of healthy trees. The poachers use chains saws and pulleys to haul the logs to the road. Reminds me of people tearing off the aluminum guard rails for resale. And a penny is worth more than a penny! Man is a scavenging mammal. Is this immoral? Who cares? The real question is, “Does it benefit the economy?”

The economy as the supreme value, btw, is bullshit. The government specializes in fear-mongering and robbing Peter to pay Paul. Oh, my, the subprime mortgages’ failing may lower the value of your home! Meaning some others could then afford a house? Say those new purchases are government supported. The government can’t support everything or there will be no economy to steal from anymore, and good intentions will have killed the golden goose of capitalism. Ah, well, I’m much more worried about my mood and my waistline, truth be told (and I’m not much worried about the latter).

We’ve seen the housing bubble twice before in California, and no one stepped in to change things—why should it change now? Because of the election cycle? Because socialism has triumphed in America? Remember that the speculators will be hurt first. And they accepted the risk. If Joe Blow could afford a house on a penny a month provided the payment would balloon to a thousand a month in three years, why should he be rewarded for buying the magic beans? It’s all about whose ox is gored; everyone believes in personal responsibility until a hurricane comes their way; then they beseech the government for deliverance. If you build your house on the Florida coast, well, tough, eat your losses. And if your home slides down the Malibu hills, sorry, Mel and Johnny, I can’t feel sorry for you. But the government surely will. Ah, the government for the people and for the people and guaranteeing more for the people shall not vanish from the earth while one tax dime goes unclaimed.


1 Kilobunny,


CE

Depressive Relapse; Writing and Personality

I wrote this the other day but forgot to post it, so forgive any redundancy at the mention of depression or the anachronistic reference to a lack of comments. --CE


The rainy season has begun, and here in coastal northern California, once it begins it seems never to end. It is the price we pay for redwoods and berries and mushrooms and all the lush vegetation that surrounds us in this emerald paradise. But you don't want to move here; it's much to damp and drizzly. And the economy sucks. And we locals treat tourists like lepers. (Actually our economy depends on them.)


To come clean, I have been in a bit of a depressive relapse since Thanksgiving, when I took a medication for pain for the trip to SF, a medication I know presents risks as soon as I go off of it. My brain screams: "Don't take it!" My back urges, "How can you drive four hours without it?" Truly my brain must win this argument, since the pain in my back can't compare with emotional pain. Strangely, though, when I now become tearful at my usual times, 11 AM and 4 PM, I think of Rachel. The sadness comes first (I am convinced the affect precedes the thought) but now, at least, I have a focus that feels healthier. She was my heart; she broke my heart in life; she shattered my heart in death.


I apologize to any who feel I sometimes ask too much of the reader, for some feeling of connection, usually when I reveal something extremely personal. I must remind myself that the medium of writing renders things impersonal; the writing is the show and the audience is the reader, and if it's a good show you don't think about the writer, you just enjoy the show--that's good writing in a nutshell. Eliot was partially right about this, how the personality must get out of the way for poetry; in confessional prose, the act of writing does change the personality into a persona; it is unavoidable. How I come across in the meat world is far different. If my mood is euthymic I tend to be a gregarious clown, something you might not guess from my writings.


I suppose what I most prize in writing, besides clarity and substance, is the virtual disappearance of the writer. Often we run into heavy-handed exposure of the writer, even in fiction, if the writer is not careful (Mailer and Thompson come to mind). One example of great writing is that no one really knows squat about Shakespeare from his plays; his sonnets are the only real record he gave us, and even they are somewhat stylized to please a patron.


The meaning of "Patron" (of the arts) has changed over the years. It used to mean the one guy you worked for to amuse, the same guy who paid you. You had to amuse him, and if he liked your stuff and paid for its printing, it added to the patron's reputation. Now "patron of the arts" seems a generic term for people who attend opera and donate now and then. In place of the old patronage system we have the grant system, where committees weight the investment of a foundation's money. It's not easy to get patronage in either case, but it sure would be nice to know for whom you're writing. Shakespeare was lucky in this regard; his audience was made up of all society's classes.


All art is for someone; initially for the artist, then for an audience, then for the critics. In my best writing, of course, an audience is never a consideration; it is all about the writing. If publication follows I feel slightly vindicated in my own judgment, but that is more frosting on the cake than the labor of the cake.


In view of the above, when I complain about a lack of comments, I deserve the criticism I get. Writing that does not objectify the writer into a voice may rightly be attacked by those who are repelled by the writer's personality and actions in the "real world."

Thine at 2 Kilorats,

CE

No comments on my near untimely demise...

My last two posts resulted in no comments, at least so far. I can understand how a cheap DVD player with a toothache can be ignored, but it does puzzle me just a wee bit why no one responded to my nearly dying. Was it my tone? Did the style of my droll recollection undermine anyone taking me seriously? Where are you Pat, or you, Jennifer, or you, Norm? I forgive Laurel because she recently posted.

In my quest for fame and glory, death is the last card to play, and it's too soon for me, as my reputation as a writer must occur sometime in the future, as I am too old to die young and misunderstood. I prefer old and misunderstood anyway, as I have some perspective about how no one is truly understood to the degree they had hoped. Sure, "We are all much more alike than otherwise," but none of us can really imagine the world from inside another's head. Even when Descartes reduced himself to a single thought, you have to wonder what kind of mind would seek that kind of vacuum, and whether he could maintain a limited consciousness without secondary comments floating through his mind from his other presumptive selves.

I sometimes think that perhaps a native, an aboriginal, might live in real time--that his only conversations are with others, that no debate goes on inside his head. He doesn't think: "I'm going to hunt;" he hunts. He doesn't think: "What shall I cook?" He cooks what's available or doesn't because nothing is. And he doesn't ask if his hunger is a sign of some god's disfavor. To have a natural consciousness--is it just a dream of Western Man? Could such peace exist internally? Are our interior discussions a result of civilization? Is the education of civilization therefore psychotic, or psychosis-promoting?

Many times in my poetry I have sought the Zen moment of forgetting myself in nature, when there was no "word" for ocean. Here's an unpublished example, one of a very few poems written during my internship half a lifetime ago:

After Rain

After the thunderstorm’s crackling resonances
the air blinks once
and in the still, unoccupied space
the birds begin their chant
as if by signal
in the tall juniper.

There is a conspiracy among them
or between them and the sky.
Their bamboo bones
divine the air’s pulse
and news travels quickly
through delicate throats.

Their speech is not our speech
but as if one mouth were speaking;
it is not relief they feel
or joy as we know it
but crescendo, counterpoint,
what the proper sound is after rain.

I have other poems that more strain to enter into the moment than describe it, but they are usually not successful, as language breaks down into some unavoidable abstractions. After all, in my imagination, the Aborigine doesn't think, "Kill lizard"--he kills the lizard.

I don't want to go Tom Sawyer on my audience, but 60 people come here each day to read something, whether my latest blog or something in the archives; that not one would comment on my brush with death puzzles me. There, I said it again. And if I were to die, would I be missed artistically? Would my essays, poems, ramblings, unpublished books, songs, CDs, the whole enchilada--would anyone miss them? Or would only my loved ones be tempted to read or listen because it reminds them of me the way I look at photographs of my late daughter, Rachel. Speaking of which, I broke my rule again. Here's the first poem I've written about her death:

On Rachel’s Death

Foam rolls like lava
down the dark rock islands,
waterfalls of seawater,
seafalls of saltwater
down the dark rock,
past the phalanx of gulls
standing motionless
in gray and white,
the colors of my beard.
An old one limps, his yellow
foot more crooked than
this line. I used to joke
that you gave me
the most white hairs.

The ocean sobs at how you died
like Marilyn with her panties on.
These details are what police write,
like the man with the red flag in his pocket
supervising sand, how your hair
was red.

(I know I promised to forsake poetry, and I have for the most part, but sometimes an exception bubbles through.)

I suppose my death would provoke as little comment as my near-death did. It's a big world out there, and the craft of writing earns a smaller and smaller audience. My thanks to whomever reads this, and no, you don't have to comment on my near dying. It's moot now that I'm alive. (Or is time past present in time present?)

1 Kilorat,

CE

Dr. Chaffin Nearly Dies!

There is a lithograph hanging in my bedroom entitled "Nine Lives." It is a pyramid of stylized cats in shades of blue, with the cat at the top of the pile nearly white, presumably representing the ninth life. I have cheated death eight times, including twice in one summer while working on offshore oil rigs. Last night I used up my ninth, and I fear my guardian angel is back on Prozac.

Later, after my brush with death, we had a discussion about whether you got a tenth life after using up nine or whether nine was the limit. Derek (stepson) and I thought it meant you got a tenth while Kathleen said nine was the limit.

(She is more the "glass is half-empty" half of our marriage, or in other words, the outrigger of sanity who anticipates danger.)

Should I list my other eight brushes with death? No, in keeping with today's infotainment cycle I'll relate only last night's occurence.

I was cooking a tough steak and sampled it before serving. I got an especially grisly piece, or should I say fascia-laden (fascia is the tough, translucent-white covering over muscles; think of it as a cellular girdle. Without fascia our muscles would relax and we would be weak and uncoordinated, finding it difficult even to walk. Just imagine all the rubber bands holding the joints and skeleton together gone limp.).

"Gristle" ought to officially refer only to cartilage, that darkly translucent yet incredibly rubbery-tough stuff that lines joints. Lacking a good common word for fascia, I'll substitute gristle. (Forgive this bird walk of medical semantics.)

In sampling the steak I swallowed a gristly piece of elongated meat. I swear it was sliding toward the right pipe when my epiglottis failed me and it slimed like a slug in a U-turn down my trachea. my first thought was, "Is my trachea truly occluded?" That was confirmed by my inability to speak. Yet because of the shape of the piece of meat, if I am not mistaken, I was still able to take in a little air around it. Maybe I could breathe, maybe I couldn't; the point is my trachea was plugged.

I reached for the back of my throat but could not reach the meat. At this point Kathleen and Derek noticed I was in trouble. Kathleen bravely attempted the Heimlich maneuver, but as I am 6'6" and 270 lbs, she couldn't get her arms around me. I was trying to give Derek instructions in how to do it with hand gestures, but he hadn't been trained. Yet he could reach around me while Kathleen coached him. So I wrapped my hands over his in a combined fist and pushed hard under my sternum to force my diaphragm up and we made a little progress, as I reached back and briefly touched the edge of the meat before it dived back into its snake hole. Instinctively I bent over, tried to cough, and finally snagged the tip of the meat with my fingers and pulled the little alien out. I breathed freely; I was a little light-headed but nowhere near passing out. I remember Kathleen saying, "That was a long piece of meat!"

People often ask what you were thinking when you came near death. I wasn't thinking; I was instinctively seeking survival, prepared to ram my belly against the top of the spinet piano next. I didn't panic; I didnt think about anything except the meat in my throat and how to get it out.

Afterwards Kathleen and Derek went to pieces, literally, tears and all, not just because of my escape but because they had been discussing the death of her first husband, Derek's father, earlier.

The first thing I said to Derek, whose face had turned almost white with terror, was, "C'm here boy, let me give you a hug." I pulled him close. In his right ear I said, "Thanks for helping save my life." In his left ear I whispered "Damn you!" --as for many years I have longed to die, to free myself from depression and pain, though I think it better to stay and try to help. "Put on the apron of life!"

Back to the revelatory moment. After I had dislodged the meat and observed its sinewy nature stretched on the linoleum, my only thought was:

"What a tough piece of steak!"

Later I ate more but sliced it very thin. It wasn't the meat's fault, after all.

"Get back on the horse, get back in the plane, go chomp on the steak again."

It tasted good, though it was a little tough.


Kiloneutral,

CE

Inauthenticity and Machines

In signing in I noticed I had made 391 blog entries prior to today's.

C. S. Lewis disparaged diaries.

But with creative nonfiction taking pride of place nowadays, the perfect work of literature would be the perfect diary, even if written in the third person. People crave reality; it is the age of reality TV, creative nonfiction, docudramas--which should tell you one thing: It is the age of unreality, the age of inauthenticity. And whatever authentic thing the media discovers in this world it generally exploits and devalues. In a free market world, where entertainment, like politics, competes for the wallet, this should be a given.

**********************

We have a DVD player purchased from Wal-Mart on the cheap. It has the most amazing rattling sound, like a playing card held to bicycle spokes by a clothes pin. I move the unit, elevate one end, and sometimes succeed in eliminating the rattle. Last night in my battle with the rattle I finally tied a bandana tight around the machine as if to squeeze it into submission--and it worked!--until tonight, when the machine rejected the toothache cliche' until I smothered it with blankets. Do machines have vanity?

All these Chinese machines. As our chief lender, China supports our slavery to consumption. They don't have to spy on us; we pull our pants down in public.

Soon it will be the ugly Chinese, buying our cities, strutting their stuff, giving Patrick Buchanan a reason to live. It's inevitable. And they will be superseded by another race, and so on, until there are only the elite and the drones. No, no, scratch that--it goes against the democratization of technology, so I reject the idea.

In my country I have found Japanese tourists the most impolite and intrusive, as if we were one giant tea garden. I actually had some of them ask me to move while I was meditating on a pool so they could get a shot of some lilies. I think my response shocked them. (Americans are not Canadians.)

Source of all human annihilation: To consider certain humans as subhuman.

Madness. No, merely mankind.

I liked the DVD player with the toothache, the innocent anthropomorphism of that. Machines have yet to reach perfection and likely never will. As things stand, their occasional failings are their most endearing qualities.

This is the Age of Inauthenticity, if I can neologize, where your next lover might be the real thing. (Not. BO and bored with positions. You will seek the real thing out if it kills you, and it likely will.) One thing about authenticity is its natural imperfections, as in the machine I mentioned. Such defects cannot be duplicated except through complicated negotiations at cellular and digital levels.

The feeling of unreality you have is quite common nowadays. We have objectified ourselves through webcams and home movies, confessions and reality shows. We are living life vicariously in the third person. Hello, Britney, Paris, Angelina!

Nothing is authentic enough for the those without grounding. Hold fast to your traditions, however quaint, for it is more than most have nowadays. Muslims see the day coming when their grounding will be stolen and they must fight for survival. Or did I miss something?


2 Kilorats,

CE

MIcrosqueeze and My Day as an Atheist

If you remember yesterday's post, well good. Here's the deal:

Microsquish is using Vista as a new OS to make all your old programs obsolete and not transferable--which means, if you buy a computer with Vista already loaded, that you will have to pay all over again for Word, Norton, whatever programs you have purchased in the past.

This is their dastardly approach.

Bill needs the money for his malaria vaccine, apparently.

Ka-Ching!

Do not buy a computer loaded with Vista unless you're wealthy and willing to fool around for a long time with your software.

I shall take my new computer back, for which, being out of the box, Circuit City will likely charge me close to $200. Yes, Matilda, I put it back in the box--but the box was unsealed! Woe is me.

*********************

Yesterday I did a thought experiment and decided to spend the day as an atheist. Nothing really happened except that I didn't pray to give thanks; I just felt grateful for certain things.

The hope of heaven and fear of hell don't work on me in any case. As I say, I believe because I can't convince myself it's not true. The best result of the day was that I felt less guilty, not so quick to condemn myself as a one falling short of the spirituality I once hoped to achieve. Also, there's freedom: If there is no God, it's up to me to decide how I'm doing. And for a manic-depressive in chronic pain I think I'm doing pretty damn well. I have love and work that I love. I gather delicious wild mushrooms whether they evolved or some great hand was behind them. Who cares?

I should say that even as a Christian I believe in a type of evolution. One argument for that position is the poor design of the human spine, especially the lumbar spine. It didn't change enough when we went from four legs to upright, and I could design a better back very easily and reduce the chances of chronic pain and millions of work days lost to back problems. This fact argues that God just let the process go and learned from it, that perfection is a process of perfecting without achieving perfection.

If we imagine there could be no sin except among angels prior to our appearance on the globe, biological life reflects a trial and error approach. God is omniscient as to what is, but I doubt he is capable of predicting, prior to the union of sperm and egg, what kind of human being will result. And there are many more areas for his ignorance, which makes me believe in limited omniscience--why God had to become Christ in order to have an experiential knowledge of human nature.

If God exists, he spent 500 million years, minimum, trying to come up with consciousness from matter.

Recently the fossil of a sea scorpion over eight feet long was discovered; imagine, an insect bigger than man! Did God hope at one time that the insects would be the dominant species? Or fish? Or birds? No one can say. Going back in time I certainly wouldn't bet on wimpy primates without claws, physically weak, prey to leopards and snakes and man-eating birds.

Man's greatest achievement is agriculture. God's greatest achievement, according to dogma, is when a new heavens and earth will be created--made possible by Christ's incarnation, of course. Good thing earth is still included. I can't imagine a paradise without trees and trout.

****************

Historically, if Christ rose from the dead and performed the miracles, it behooves us to pay attention. I'm convinced the history is accurate for the most part. Many early Christians died rather than admit that Christ didn't rise from the dead.

As for my loved ones, like my recently deceased daughter, Rachel, it is enough to carry her memory in my head and think fondly of her. That she and I will only be dust for centuries to come makes no difference in my feelings toward her. I don't love her or any of my children or sibs or wife any less for not believing in God. So what is the advantage of faith beyond a comprehensive world view? "He makes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust."

The one dividing line is when we are truly in need, what I call "fox hole faith." That is, it's said there are no atheists in a fox hole. Under severe stress we regress to infancy and want some Mommy figure to intervene, to make it all better, issuing in "prayer" while an atheist in a fox hole calculates his chances and uses his intelligence for survival. Perhaps his deliberations might actually be harmed by prayer; perhaps reliance on some supernatural being might also undermine self-reliance and consequent escape. The fear that the atheist would shoot his fellow for food in a pinch I find laughable. Friendship, a worldly thing, would prevent that, not to mention the army code and the human code which does not depend on the Bible for us to know, as Confucious and others have laid it out very well. And Kant says morality is in effect hard-wired; there's no way to avoid it.

Being an atheist doesn't turn one into a sociopath. But it may increase the appreciation one has for life and friends and love, knowing that they are evanescent, knowing that there is no future but now, a damn good reason to dandle your grandchild on your knee for an extra half hour.

So here is my challenge: Convince me how life would be worse, especially my life, in real time if I deconvert to atheism, because I'm stumped. I thought it would be horrible, that life would be bereft of meaning. It's not. In fact, atheism could help my career, as I would be more aggressive in promoting my writing in the hope of having a reputation that might outlast my life.

So, for you who have finished this first-draft ramble, I'm curious as to your opinions. I have met many agnostics more charitable than Christians. That doesn't make Christianity untrue; it only implies that becoming a Christian, in my experience, does not necessarily make you a better person. Often believers become more obsessed with salvation than good works. Christ's ultimate judgment between the sheep and goats depends on their works. "I was in prison and you visited me."

If an agnostic performs the above, according to Ct his works won't save him and being a better person is only relative. I tend to disagree. I prefer an unbeliever who acts in a Christian way to a Christian who doesn't any day of the week. "I was hungry and you fed me."

Not that agnostics and atheists are so great as a group: "I was in prison and you spent all your money on a new Volvo and a trip to Hawaii."

Enough. Or not enough.

Kiloneutral,

Craig Erick

Of Presumption in Consumption

I didn't believe in Black Friday. I thought only lemmings did what the papers say we'll do. So I drove to Circuit City in the early afternoon to buy a computer I picked out weeks ahead, though the significant outlay may render our Christmas commercially skimpy; call it a "Victoria's Secret" Christmas.

When I arrived at Circuit City what did I find but a parking lot full of mad lemmings! I went down a parking aisle; two cars stopped in front of me, three locked in behind me, and we began to wait for some blue hair in a Cadillac to back out of her space. I freaked. "I can't do this!" As soon as could, I extricated myself from that consumer madhouse to breathe freely again on the blessed freeway. I did not go near a store entrance.

Afterwards I said to my sister: "I can't believe that people actually behave the way retailers want them to, like sheep to fodder!" She stared at me as if I were a Kindergartner. Hey, I was never very good with practical reality. Like most fools I assumed others were like me. No. Others were in line at Best Buy by 4 AM.

Later, driving home from the Bay Area, I stopped at the Circuit City in Santa Rosa in the late afternoon. No rush, no hassle, instant service, they had it in stock, I got my $105 rebate--it went like clockwork. Until I got my new Acer Aspire 5520 5912 home--only to discover it had Vista but no Word program! All my former documents were now useless! The ecstasy of my new purchase had been plunged into the agony of its uselessness. Mr. Gates wants $265 for Microsoft Office and I can't spend any more right now. So keep those cards and bootlegs coming.

What's funny is that I did not discover the fact until I was deep into the information transfer protocol. Talk about stupid! Why won't my documents open? Word Pad, which was included, did open them but lost all their formatting. I plead stupid. To buy a computer loaded with Vista but not Word never occurred to this little trout brain of mine. I should have bought a new brain.

Kathleen had also purchased new sheets at a Costco nearby, but while drying them somehow a pen burst and spotted everything, including my stepson's clothes. Now I call him "Dalmation Boy." (Perhaps "spotted dog," that famous greasy English pudding of the O'Brien novels, might suit him better.)

Kathleen also purchased another layer of memory foam to add to our present layer. Unfortunately the increased foam makes us sink towards the middle of the bed even faster--the very thing she sought to prevent. It's simple physics. I weigh 270, she weighs at least 100 lbs. less. I make a deeper hole in the memory foam, she rolls into it. "He who digs a pit will fall into it," wrote Solomon. He should have added: "And his bedmate, too." What a pisser! New sheets stained, new mattress addition worthless, new computer impossible to use.

No matter. There's a super low tide for abalone picking today and Kathleen also wants me to gather wild mushrooms for her pot roast, which I am more than happy to do. To obtain mushrooms for a pot roast is much more tangibly satisfying than fooling with software. And mushrooms are fungible whereas computer files are not.

Another perfect day!



2 kilobunnies,

CE

Black Friday and the Kingdom of Craig

Tonight we voyage down to the Bay Area to have Thanksgiving with my sister. It's become a yearly tradition, God bless her, and I like traditions--we have too few.

She pointed out to me that "Black Friday" (so named for putting businesses in back in the black) coincides this year with our father's suicide, 11/23/87.
Twenty years.

He was a shrewd consumer.

Mom tumored out on us 17 years ago, exactly how long we've all been orphans playing at Christmas and Thanksgiving. It's a bitch being in charge. Thank God for women, truly.

If I were my parents I'd be grateful my children were still talking to each other.

Notice the date he chose. He meant it to be before Thanksgiving, the poor bastard couldn't face the bird, the Pteranadon of darkness.

He wanted there to be something there more than chemicals. There is, but in this realm it still involves chemicals as one parallel incarnation.

He didn't believe psychiatrists were real doctors, perhaps because they locked him up in the Air Force for a month for a manic episode and gave him a medical discharge. The shame of it, for him, was too painful to acknowledge. He always said "it was for pneumonia."

My psychiatrist told me today that I had negatively biased information selection, the cognitive-behavioral equivalent of a melancholy temperament. The words change, the disease doesn't. Of course I am much more likely to remember sad, mad and bad things about Dad than rad and glad things about him.

My melancholy temperament makes me want to weep over my daughters in ballet outfits as young girls, though sometimes it curls my lips upward.

It's my memory of me in those pictures that most makes me sad. Why do I feel lost? My wife loves me unconditionally; my spirit can't actually receive it though my body believes it. How great it would be to look at the grain and not the chaff.

In the Kingdom of Craig there are no sad thoughts, no mad thoughts and no bad thoughts.

Yearbooks make me sad. Even old photographs of my children can, Rachel's death notwithstanding.

My back hurts. I don't want to type any more.

In the Kingdom of Craig there is no pain.

My back is the chief reason I receive disability. Manic-depression is just frosting. Did you really need to know that?

Ah, but you love me. Because in the Kingdom of Craig, what?

There are no sad thoughts and no mad thoughts and no bad thoughts.


Love and thanks to all,

Craggeerik

Is This Normal?

Tell me if this is normal background worry:

A vague recrimination about your hoping to be dead before the planet goes to hell; a guilty wish to be protected from people you don't like; dread at answering the phone; being afraid to speak my real feelings for fear of hurting other people's feelings. I take my anger out on little issues like; "Why didn't you tell you were going to take my effin cell phone!"

Or maybe that violation is justifiably anger-provoking.

How would I know? It's been so long since I've been normal, if ever I was.

I'm taking all my medications but not feeling particularly sanguine. I wonder if I am within the normal range of feelings.

Normality requires a kind of blindness to things, a protective tunnel vision constructed around concrete reality. I get so bored with that.

I have great ambivalence toward my visiting stepson whom I recently sprang from Mexico in a act of mad forgiveness, but I can't go into detail, I might hurt someone's feelings.

What about my feelings? Is my polite subjugation to others' needs really polite or just subjugation? Am I a man or a mouse?

Why can't I be my own co-dependent?

I have enough voices in my head for a complete AA meeting.

I'm not psychotic. I'm not depressed. I'm stressed and slightly melancholy.

3 new beings in my environment in less than 3 weeks! I was silly to go along with it. It's a wonder I haven't lost my mind.

Now Kathleen and the cats and Derek gang up on me . I'm a stranger in my own home and I pay the rent.

I do like the cats.

Soon the stress of Thanksgiving.

Even joy is stressful.


At 1 Kilorat,

CE

Car Parts and a New Cat

Greetings, Earthlings!

I went online to order a passenger side headlight assembly for our ’99 Plymouth Voyager super beater. Did you know that the passenger side headlight assembly costs twice as much as the driver’s side assembly? Must be that more drivers are creaming their left headlight is all I can figure. Still, $265? Discount warehouse, yeah! The prices for many car parts are outrageous. Why can’t they have more chop shops online?

Yesterday we mailed my Eliot ms., a labor of four years, to the professor who will read it for Mellen Press. Keep your cyberfingers crossed for me; it would mean a lot to me if someone published this book. Still I won’t give up after a first rejection by any means.

As some of you know, except for this blog I have given up new writing for the nonce. I will embark on no new ventures until all my old ones are wrapped up and marketed to the best of my ability. The novel’s in good shape and so are two books of stories. The columns, which Kathleen believes in, I think are too anachronistic to be reprinted, as many of them concern current events such as 9/11 and elections.

So I’m doing a lot of donkey work. Yesterday I scanned about thirty different song lyrics in various states of disrepair onto my computer so that I can compile all the songs I’ve written and record them as well. I have many more songs to go. It is a slow process, scanning and correcting moldy old papers with some print on them. It might actually be easier to type them anew, but I like the whole process of reclaiming these old papers.

I used to write songs more often than poems. Certainly they are easier to remember, set to melody and all. I like things you can whistle.

Kathleen was named “Employee of the Quarter” in the charitable organization for which she labors, which included a nice bonus. And now, with the manager’s absence, she has been raised to temporary manager. Soon she’ll be fundraising in Manhattan with Yoko.

*************

My baby brother is so obsessive that I hope he doesn’t read this. My baby brother is so obsessive that I hope he doesn’t read this. My baby brother is so obsessive that I hope he doesn’t read this. My baby brother is so obsessive that if he reads this he will think it’s about him, after which he will look for clues as to my real meaning. My real meaning is hidden in the hollows of the letters. What I have written there, too small for reproduction, is the secret of and cure for all his obsessions. My baby brother is so obsessive that I hope he doesn’t read this or he will be disappointed, Not enough to obsess about.

My baby brother is 6’7” and at least 350 lbs. Big baby brother! In the picture above he is the one on the right.

I think I’m going slowly deaf. I don’t know which ear is worse. Either that or Kathleen has taken to speaking more softly. As our vision and hearing goes we shall have to tap Morse on each other’s skulls to communicate. As for sex, I suppose grabbing will still do in a pinch.

We got another cat, Topaz. I promise pictures soon. Kathleen didn’t want Jo Jo to be lonely while we’re gone. Now Jo Jo’s not lonely, she’s pissed and hissing at Topaz, who is nonplussed by the larger cat. We call her “Topaz” because she has a beautiful rust-colored diamond in the middle of her forehead.

Kiloneutral with occasional glimpses into the abyss, but working hard and whistling past the graveyard,


Craig Erick

Kiloneutral; The Great American Novel Race

I have been neglecting my blog because of an Amazon.com contest for a first novel, for which they are receiving 5000 entries. A friend told me about this, a friend who dedicated himself, though a realtor, to producing a novel in a matter of weeks for the contest. I haven’t checked back with him; I really don’t want to be asked to read his output, though I’m sure its genius is unrivaled. That’s a lot of Chutzpah on his part. There are people who can write well at that pace, like the prolific Joyce Carol Oates, but I don’t think life as a realtor is the best preparation.

If he wins I’ll kill myself.

So I got through a third draft and began a fourth draft (largely incomplete) of “The Abomination” before today, the day I must mail the ms. and a 5,000-word excerpt to Amazon. In the revision process the book has been cut from 120,000 words to 85,000, roughly 30%, which I take as a good sign. For sustaining interest the book relies heavily on character, although the plot includes four murders and some science fiction and religious mumbo-jumbo.

Meanwhile the Edwin Mellen Press has agreed to look at my T. S. Eliot ms.

Also, an editor from a paying magazine solicited poems from me and took two out of three. So things are looking up.

It’s hard for an artist to dissociate his self-esteem from his work, but I try. My psychological defense against “failure” is very primitive; I belittle my work and give it no chance to succeed. Thus I prevent disappointment by already being disappointed. Still I can’t help feeling my little heart go bumpety-bump to know some Oxford professor will be taking my Eliot ms. seriously.

In other news, the friend I recovered at Rachel’s memorial service has been plying me eloquently with the neglected news of Christians' contributions to art and civilization. He bragged that the Christian monasteries kept the classics alive for the Renaissance. I said why didn’t the dumb monks read the books and start a Renaissance? He's wonderful debater and writer and rhetorical cheat, and I’ve enjoyed our interchanges thoroughly, just as the resumption of our friendship has been the one good thing that came out of Rachel’s death for me. As daughter Sarah says, 18 (though already bitten by the Chaffin black humor bug), “And all I got was this car.”

Mushrooming season has started. The other night I smothered Kathleen’s pot roast in honey mushrooms, and the result was heavenly. Nothing like fresh mushrooms for delicate spicing and good gravy. One of these nights we’ll eat all wild: Abalone, wild mushrooms and a salad of local leaves. But I’ll have to add rice. I like rice or potatoes with nearly every dinner that isn't soup. And although I may be accused of blasphemy in the matter, I prize potatoes over macaroni and cheese as well as meatloaf as the ultimate comfort food. And there's no German or Irish in me.

I’m at kiloneutral today. I still don’t feel as if the ground is absolutely solid beneath my feet, but for someone who just endured a depression for a year-and-a-half, this is not surprising. I may never feel the ground is solid again. I know I can fall victim to bad chemicals at any time. Still, the background threat of “groundlessness,” as Buddhists call it, also increases my gratefulness for every moment I’m not depressed. Funny how that works.


Kiloneutral,

CE

Stalking the Wild Abalone

One of the first questions I could answer when I emerged from my awful depression was: “What do you want for your birthday?” Without hesitation I said, “A guided abalone dive.”

This is a good test question for mental health. Healthy people usually want things and if they can get those things for free they should have no trouble remembering what those things are. If you’d asked me the same question over a month ago I would have been absolutely stumped.

********

Sunday I cashed in Kathleen’s gift and went stalking the wild abalone-- that terrifying mollusk of the deep! It was after 5 PM. The water was murky, the swell was picking up. Strands of bull kelp and sea grass clawed at my head like blackberry vines. Visibility perhaps 15 ft. Seawater in my snorkel, damn! They come….…

sliming, sliggering, slouching, suctioning forward on dirty tongues with the black ruffle around them, the army of angry mollusks pursue their ancient grudge against vertebrates: "The shell was it, man! Impregnable. And now you feast on me. I'm gonna go Pre-Cambrian on your ass.”

“That’s because you evolved far enough to survive and afterwards got lazy.”

"Beware, vertebrate!”

When the abalone attacked I was already fitted with 30 lbs. of weights (to counteract the flotation of my wetsuit), so that the weight of each additional abalone that grolloped on my bod would drag me further down to Davey Jones' Gym Locker no matter what manic counter-propulsion my fins attempted.

Here come the limpets on steroids! The Barry Bonds Barnacles!

"Belt first!" Their general cried.

I tried to release my belt but the damn clams wouldn’t let me get my hands on the buckle in time.

In ten-foot depths I clung to a large rock and hoped that my house—the one with a spine and real lungs--would not have its subprime jumbo shrimp bluff called.

On they came, sucking, seeking…

When my eyes dipped toward the waterline and I took my last breath, I realized that the mask and snorkel were of no use now—but before I tossed them a thought arrived: What if I were to blow air underneath the abalooneys with the snorkel! They use water cannons above ground, why not reverse the elements?

I began air-goosing every parasitic mollusk I could find clinging to my suit. Miraculously the damn clams ran from air like black from rice. Lightened, I rose to the surface; frightened, they twirled back to the bottom, licking their tongues and whining invertebrate excuses.

Despite these initial difficulties I managed three legal abalones in my first hour.

Afterwards I bought an abalone hammer and pounded the beasts into delicate strip-steaks of firm white flesh for my dear wife who had never tasted abalone. It lived up to its reputation; she said it was “to die for,” and indeed, every season five divers agree with her.

Sorry to leave you with the taste of death in your mouths.


Happy Halloween,

Craig Erick

Rip Van Winkle

Not being depressed I find myself whining about inconsequential matters. That I should experience fear, anger, or sadness apart from their obsidian amalgam in my illness I suddenly take for granted.

Today, for instance: after I had to buy seven more Abilify for $107.00 yesterday because my meds hadn’t come from Canada—yes, you guessed it, the damn meds arrived. And of course they were late because when I sent the Rx in, I hadn’t noted the order # on the Rx. I did make an order online, but they filed the original Rx away and never connected the dots. Fine print. Policy and procedure. Don’t you hate it?

Kathleen has taught me to read instructions on many things I didn’t use to; still, I somehow manage to miss the important parts. If for every new purchase you read every instruction and legal disclaimer, would you even have time to eat? Imagine grocery shopping and reading every nutritional box. Or the complete instructions, twenty pages in badly translated Chinese, of how to operate your new television. Laugh, you can laugh, but eventually your dereliction will bite you in the ass. I suppose the answer is to read the fine print for anything important, like life and health insurance and mortgages and new cars. But what about refrigerators? Where do you draw the line?

My theme was how forgetful the human animal is. I must remember gratefulness; after being underwater for 18 mos. and having my head above for one, do I really need to complain about spending an unnecessary $100.00 for my life-saving medication? Or is that just normal living? “Dear, that man cut me off! Get his license number! Why did they deliver the paper so late? I can’t believe the price of gas! Can you believe how all the aging rock stars are trying to revive their careers by doing duets with other aging rock stars?” And so on. These are the normal and trivial emotions of the human tribe, and perhaps I should be grateful that I can again experience them.

It’s like sports; there’s something so innocently human about rooting for your favorite team. I’m rooting for Boston now, though a Dodgers fan, though neither compares to my devotion to the Lakers. But isn’t it charming? The arbitrary loyalty to a team of millionaires who do something with a ball? I think it’s charming. So normal. I feel sorry for those who choose their allegiances by merit. Home teams are like family; you love them mindlessly. They belong to you.

My new euthymic attitude extends to so many things. It’s like waking up from a long nightmare. I look at my bookcase and exclaim, “I have so many wonderful books! I look at my CD collection and remark, “I can’t believe how much good music I have!” I look in my closet and think, “I’ve never had so many clothes!

Is that my beautiful wife?


1 Kilobunny.

CE

Cruelty to Plants; New Cat; Banned from My Writing Class

I saw a pick-up truck today with tropical plants in the bed traveling at 50 mph along the bracing coast. I thought of reporting it to the SPCP, “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants.” Then I realized there was no such organization and that it was up to me to found it. Ah, one more small responsibility for Dr. Yours Truly. (You’d think people would have wised up by now and simply elected me supreme potentate, since I know what’s best for everyone. Who else worries about the damn plants, hmm?)

Did you know that plants grow better to Mozart and that carrots, according to electric sensors, emit the equivalent of a scream when uprooted? Just because we believe plants don’t have sentience doesn’t mean they can’t experience pain just as animals do. Yes, Cain’s vegetable offering was rejected and Abel’s received, and we grieve about the fratricide, but what about the poor vegetables and the emotional wound of their rejection by the very God who created them? We’re talking years of therapy with manure and fish emulsion.

Today we picked out our new pet, a cat almost one-year-old. Her name is Jo Jo, but we haven’t decided to keep the name yet. She is gray with white paws and all kinds of crazy stripes, her eyes yellow. Right now she’s hiding in the open coat closet behind the vacuum cleaner, from where she makes sorties up and down the stairs, but never too far—she’s brave but still cautious. The cubicle at the pound was big but not so overwhelming as our rental to her. I’ve seen cats go through this adjustment period before and am confident that she will soon rule the roost. LKD knows that already.

It may take a while for me to provide a picture since Kathleen lost the digital camera (that we couldn’t afford) I bought her for Christmas. If she reads this it is only to make her feel guilty. I’m so mean! Then why should Kathleen read my blog? She lives it with me. It should bore her to hell, one of the lesser known means of entrance to that region.

Besides the four new publications announced in my last blog, I just got news that Oysters and Chocolate, an online magazine of erotica, will pay me for a poem entitled “Her Steaming Love Tunnel.” I’ll give you the link when it appears, but I don’t feel comfortable posting the poem--my Junior Craig Club members’ parents might sue me and then who would pay my freight? Ever since I exposed Big Bird as the extraterrestrial queer that he is, many parents have directed their children here. Why did I write this sexy piece (though long ago, before my break from writing poetry)? Because to write for money means experimenting with every paying genre. If porno poems sell better than love poems I’ll just go there. Wait—not porno--The poem has socially redeeming value, if only to affirm the joy of intromission, ejaculation and afterglow in pursuit of the “golden fleece” of the simultaneous orgasm. Near the end the narrator yells, “I’m a horse not a man!” I like that and so would Catherine the Great.

Kathleen is reading my novel’s second draft and finds it more absorbing than the Dick Francis novel she’s trying to read, which is good news for me, as she is certainly my harshest critic. If I can hold her attention, there is hope for a third draft.

BTW, if anyone would like an e-mail attachment of any of the works below, simply mail me and ask. You’ll have to bear the costs of printing.


Poems:

Sine Wave
Love Poems
Simply Said

Novel:

The Abomination

Short Stories:

The Eric Chronicles
Five Stories and a Play

Criticism:

T. S. Eliot: The Major Poems (an undergraduate primer)

Humor:

Collected Columns


Max asked me to detail how I got booted from a creative writing class. First, I joined it during my depression as a discipline for continuing social involvement that I demand of myself when depressed. I also hoped to meet a circle of writers in my new stomping grounds. And the teacher came highly recommended from my neighbor who claims to be a writer but will always lack the chops.

At the last class I attended a woman read a treacly, maudlin poem that made my hair stand on end. Since everyone else chimed in, I added my two cents that it sounded like “A Blue Mountain Arts” card. The teacher interrupted me to say “that’s over the line, let’s stop there.” I assure you there was no malice in my comment and that the “poem” was abominable.

After class the teacher asked to speak with me. She told me she tried to provide a nurturing environment for writers, and that this class had been together a long time. I asked her if feeling good was more important than writing well, and she dodged the question, indicating both were important, but one shouldn’t call another’s work “Hallmark,” to which I vociferously objected:

“I didn’t call it ‘Hallmark,’ I called it ‘Blue Mountain Arts,’ and there’s a world of difference in that distinction. I choose my comments carefully, unlike what you think.” That was over her head. I then asked her, “How many people have complained about me?”

She said, “four.” That amazed me. “And they don’t have the balls to speak to me but have to hide under the teacher’s skirt?” She didn’t like that one at all.
“So, do you really want me to come back?” I said.

“Oh yes,” she said, “You’re a very good writer.” (How would she know if she’s more concerned with feelings?)

I asked her again if she really wanted me to return. “By all means,” she said, “just try to be more nurturing and less critical.”

I said, “If four people complained about you in a writing class, would you feel like coming back?”

“I can’t say,” she said, “and it’s not like that.”

“Like what?” I said.

She demurred. Depressed or not I wasn’t going to return to a class of wannabes who couldn’t stand constructive, yes, constructive criticism. The story of my life: unable to judge the social acceptability of my utterance of the truth as I perceive it. My tongue believes in “Leap before thou lookest.”

I cried yesterday morning when Kathleen mentioned that she had been grieving for Kenyon and Rachel. While weeping separately together, I said, “Good morning to you, too!” Later I graciously thanked her for ruining my day. But Jo Jo the wonder cat made me happy again. Soon she will be purring in my lap beside my laptop. I love a purring cat!

All for today.

1 Kilobunny,

CE